29 Sep
2011
29 Sep
'11
11:07 a.m.
On 29 Sep 2011 at 10:43, steve shumaker wrote:
Mulling the question of which firmware of several is
installed and
what boot disks are available for each triggers a thought perhaps
appropriate for a different thread (unless there's an easy answer that
I'm unaware of): There are several repositories for boot disks of
all makes sizes but is anyone doing the same for the multitude of
firmware PROMs that are slowly decaying in all these machines?
Not just PROMS, but PAL/HAL/GAL/PEEL, etc.
I brute-forced a HAL10L8 last week, using a PC and a little board
consisting of a couple LS393 ripple counters and an LS151 8-way mux
to serialize the data. Manuipulation was done with 2 data bits and
one status bit from a printer port.
I could have also grabbled a small uC to do the job--and still may,
if there is any need to do more of this (easily reconfigured pinout),
but I had the junkbox components and I didn't have to program them.
A worthwhile project might be a cheap "universal PROM/PAL" reader.
Just thinking...
--Chuck